Many types of identification applications require a tag on which a user can apply data. The data can be written on the tags by various means, such as typing, printing with computer printing equipment or other types of printing apparatus, handwriting, etc. This allows the user to apply specific or individual identifying information to a tag, which is then applied to an object.
Further, the user often desires to protect the information that has been written on the tag. However, the systems to afford this type of protection of which I am presently aware are particularly cumbersome to use. In one of the known methods, the user cuts transparent adhesive tape to the size appropriate for covering the information on a tag, and then applies the tape over the written data on the tag. In another system, a separate stock of die-cut pieces of transparent tape is maintained and a piece is applied over data written on the tag. Each of these methods requires the user to maintain stocks of transparent adhesive material for the protective overlaminating sheet, both are cumbersome and inconvenient to use, and either can sometimes involve extra waste material if the transparent element is mounted on a liner. A third prior system consists of a tag and a transparent overlaminating sheet secured along one edge of the upper surface of the tag. The overlaminating sheet has transparent adhesive on its underside that is covered with a liner sheet. After data are applied to the upper surface of the tag, the liner is removed from the overlaminating sheet and the sheet is then adhered over the upper surface of the tag. This construction also requires extra material (such as the liner sheet), is difficult to produce as an assembly having a plurality of units, and is relatively expensive to manufacture.
Some of the principal objects of my present invention are to provide an assembly combining a write-on tag and a transparent cover element which is convenient to use, requires a minimum of material, eliminates the need for a user to maintain separate stocks of tags and transparent protective material, can be produced in the form of an assembly having a plurality of tag and cover element units, and is capable of being readily manufactured in large quantities at reasonable cost. Another principal object is to provide a more specific version of a tag and cover element combination having the foregoing characteristics that is particularly adapted for facile removal of a tag and its associated cover element from an assembly thereof, and to provide an assembly of tags and cover elements that is capable of being guided along its edges. Other more specific objects will appear in the description which follows: